A checkpoint shooting in eastern Afghanistan’s Wardak province brought the US military’s death toll in the war past 2,000. About as many Afghan civilians are killed each year.
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Japanese and Taiwanese patrol ships blasted each other with water cannon as a fishing fleet from Taiwan mobilized a protest flotilla to the contested East China Sea islands.
The jihad against a non-existent “film” produced by non-existent “Jews” continues to claim lives, with the latest attack launched by militants in Egypt’s Sinai on Israeli border troops.
Leon Panetta in Auckland announced that US naval cooperation with New Zealand will be resumed—cut off in 1985, when the Pacific nation declared itself a nuclear-free zone.
China and Japan are moving ahead with new Free Trade Agreements such as the ASEAN+6 pact and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, even amid escalated military tensions.
The one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street may herald a revival of the movement—but continued hedging on an anti-capitalist analysis bottlenecks its potential.
Leon Panetta warned that the latest escalation over islands disputed by China and Japan could lead to war—even as he arrived in Tokyo to inaugurate a new anti-missile system.
With two US warships headed for Libya, 25 nations led by the US are converging on the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz for naval maneuvers on an unprecedented scale.
Both imperialism and political Islam see in the current crisis the opportunity to revive the dystopian dialectic of jihad-versus-GWOT—and reverse the gains of the Arab Spring.
Julian Assange’s supporters accuse the media of hypocrisy in pointing to Ecuador’s sketchy record on press freedom—but come dangerously close to apologizing for repression.
